


Cleave

by fleurjaune



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alcohol, Bad Decisions, Emilie Agreste Lives, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Mentioned Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Mentioned Emilie Agreste, Minor Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Minor Emilie Agreste/Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Post-Canon, Regret, Regretful Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Regretful Nathalie Sancoeur, Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, bad people get away with doing bad things, post identity reveals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27577343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurjaune/pseuds/fleurjaune
Summary: Years after Ladybug and Chat Noir's mysterious defeat of Hawkmoth Nathalie and Gabriel reunite at Adrien and Marinette's wedding.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth & Nathalie Sancoeur, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 17
Kudos: 66





	Cleave

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

She watches the dancing from a distance, most of the others at her table have already left, either to join it or off in search of more drink now that that provided with the dinner has run out, or whatever else people do at parties.

“Mind if I sit here?” asks a voice, somehow still-familiar despite the years since she last heard it.

“Sir,” tumbles out of her mouth automatically, and she straightens up as if she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t, as if none of their time apart has really happened, and she’s still his assistant.

“Gabriel, please,” Gabriel says, “You don’t work for me anymore.”

She meets his eyes looking for an explanation for his presence, unsure what she expects or wants to find. He’s not displeased to see her, she can see _that_ much, but working out anything more is beyond her these days. She was good at it once but now she’s out of practise reading his moods.

“You can sit down if you want.” She says, purposely omitting any form of address. He’s right that she doesn’t work for him but calling him Gabriel is too familiar for the strangers they are now. If it ever was appropriate which she’s not sure that it was, except perhaps in was in those dark moments between them in the attic, then she’d left that far behind when she left that house. Yet calling him Mr Agreste seems far too formal for what they’ve been through together.

“I wasn’t sure I’d see you today.” He says as he sits down next to her.

“I’m surprised to be here.” She tells him truthfully, “I hadn’t expected an invite.”

He’s the only person here apart from the bride and groom themselves, and she supposes his own wife, who can understand what she really means when she says that. Who knows exactly why it was so shocking to get a wedding invite from Adrien and Marinette rather than a long-delayed punishment.

Which is why he can say, “They invited me,” and it’s not as nonsensical a remark as it would seem to anybody overhearing them.

Still though, “You’re his _father._ I’m just,” she could end that in many ways, ranging from why Adrien wouldn’t care about her to why he’d hate her, but she goes for the prosaic over the dramatic, “your former assistant.”

“You know you’re a bigger part of his life than that job title would suggest.”

“A bigger part of ruining his life.” She points out, but doesn’t admit to how uncertain that had made her as to whether she should accept the invitation. In the end she’d had to ask Marinette when she came instead of Adrien on their next monitoring visit whether he actually wanted her there, or if it was just the propriety she’d drilled into him as a child and a teenager that had made him invite her.

Marinette had seemed to think the question odd, and had told her they wouldn’t have invited her if they didn’t want her to come.

“Nathalie,” Gabriel sighs almost inaudible over the new song that’s just come on, and leans toward her as if to say something more easily heard.

Suddenly it’s too much. All these people-half of Paris seems to have been invited. The music. The Agrestes. Gabriel. There’s only so much she can deal with.

“I’m going out for a smoke.” She says, “You can come if you want. Unless you think that us disappearing might worry the bride and groom.”

He knows Adrien better than she does these days.

Given her invite here she can only assume her banishment from the Agreste household is over but despite Marinette’s reassurances she can’t say she understands why Adrien invited her here any better than she does why his father is talking to her now.

* * *

She leans against the railing of the hotel terrace, and gets out a cigarette and a lighter.

He settles next to her following her gaze outwards, “I didn’t realise you still smoked.”

It’s easier now they’re not looking straight at each other. “Only socially.”

And in truth in her life that means that rarely at all. She feels the temptation to at home on her balcony quite often but she knows if she gives into that once she’ll never stop. Better to keep it something occasional, though she doesn’t really know why she cares about her wellbeing.

Gabriel takes a little too long to respond then he asks, “Did you assume I’d follow you then?”

You always used to, she could say. She doesn’t. “I thought you might.”

He pulls the cigarette out of her hand, “They’re not good for your health you know.”

“Everyone knows that.” She says reaching for it back, irritated that he’d dare to pretend to worry about her, “On the scale of my self-destructive tendencies, the occasional smoke ranks pretty low.”

He doesn’t return her cigerette and for a second she thinks he’s going to chuck it away, but then he brings it to his lips and takes a deep drag of it before passing it back to her.

She raises her eyebrows in question, and he shrugs, “You make a good point. Besides there’s no clothes to damage here.”

That had been his _original_ reason for banning her from smoking when she was working, long before they’d ever had reasons to worry about magical damage to her lungs. Ironic given how common it was in the industry, what with the stress relief and the appetite suppression.

“That’s true.” She says, and the silence of the night returns around them.

Putting the cigarette back between her lips she tries not to think about the fact it's just been between his.

“I never thanked you.” He says out of nowhere.

“Hmm?”

“For everything you did. For what you almost did. I never thanked you.”

He hadn’t, but she hadn’t been looking for thanks. Not really, when as much as she might have savoured the crumbs of praise he threw her way she hadn’t really thought she’d be around to receive any gratitude. Sometimes she still wishes that everything had worked out that way and she wasn’t. It would have been neater.

She certainly doesn’t know why he’d say this _now._

She takes another drag on her cigarette instead of answering him.

“I’m surprised you recognised me.” She says eventually as if he’d never brought up what almost happened, “No one else from the old _Gabriel_ days has. It’s the hair I suppose.”

“I worked with you every day for over a decade, it would be a bit worrying if I couldn’t recognise you. Though the hair is certainly a change.”

“You can say it’s terrible.” Adrien had wanted to the first time he’d seen it but had bit back his first reaction in politeness. His father used to be the more blunt than him with her though. Then again she’s not his intimate anymore and when he wasn’t trying to akumatise people Gabriel did know to flatter acquaintances. He wouldn’t have risen to the heights he did in the fashion world if he hadn’t.

Gabriel plucks the cigarette out of her hands again, “It’s not terrible _._ Sort of gamine really.”

“I’m at least two decades too old to be called gamine.”

Perhaps with the earned wisdom of a long married man he doesn’t take the bait, “Why keep it if you think it’s terrible?”

“It’s practical.” She says in lieu of explaining how her long hair how seemed too youthful and had got straggly, so she’d had it chopped to her shoulders only to find it didn’t fit well in a bun, and she’d hated getting in her face as she worked. So she’d had it cut shorter into its current pixie style carefully avoiding anything in-between that could have looked too much like Mayura.

“And the brown?”

“I've a plan to go slightly lighter each year, to make the grey easier to blend in.” An amusing image strikes her, “Or do you think I should jump straight to platinum? We could be twins.”

His lips twist, “I’m not that much of a narcissist.”

“Are you going to give me that back, or should I get another one?” She asks referring to the cigarette.

He passes it back, “I’m halving the damage you do to yourself.”

“That’s ironic.”

He's silent for a moment then he says, “I deserved that.”

She shrugs. It's hard to care anymore.

“Do you regret it at all? Any of it?” She asks.

“Do you?”

“I asked you first.” 

“Do you want the truth, or do you the answer I give my son and my wife?”

“I'm not your son or your wife.” She points out. Years ago she might have regretted the latter. Now it just is.

He takes a step away from the balustrade and considers her and she wonders what he's thinking.

He used to be honest with her. That’s another thing she could point out. Just like earlier she doesn't.

“I don't regret that we saved Emilie's life.” He says. “I never will.”

She doesn't point out that technically Adrien and Marinette did that, because after all if there hadn’t been a Hawkmoth they wouldn't have become Chat Noir and Ladybug, and they never would have been able to save Emilie.

“But yes, I _do_ regret much of the rest of it. I regret what I did to you.” He looks her up and down, and his gaze stays on her legs, “I regret what I didn’t do with you.”

Her cheeks flush under his frank appraisal. “You’re married.”

“I’m aware.”

“You’d think you’d never seen my legs before.”

“I haven’t.”

She tilts her head, wondering if whatever therapy Emilie and Adrien had dragged him to had suppressed as his memories of his time as Hawkmoth.

He seems to understand her because he clarifies, “Not not-blue I haven’t.”

She shivers under his gaze, but he must misinterpret it but he shrugs off his suit jacket and puts it’s over her shoulders. She lets herself relax into his hands when they rest there for a moment before he regains his senses and pulls away. 

Strange that after all this time his affection still seems as addictive as ever.

“So, what about you?” He asks.

She inhales and exhales her cigarette smoke before answering, “What about me?”

“Is there a plus-one in there?”

She snorts, “No. God do you know I used to blame you for my lack of a love life? Turns out it’s just something deficient in me. I lack something I think.”

She can’t quite find the words to express what that something _is_ but it is something. Something that makes her unloveable. Or something that makes her unable to love normally. Something anyway.

Gabriel swallows. “I never thought you deficient.”

Looking up at him she doesn’t try to keep the scepticism off her face. “I’m not convinced you thought of me as a person until I used the Peacock Miraculous.”

“I still don’t understand why you did.”

“It doesn’t really matter now does it?”

“What you said earlier, about blaming me. You’re not saying that the whole time, you were…” He trails off clearly unable to force the words out of his mouth.

“Don’t flatter yourself. No, originally it was just the hours, and how I was too tired after work to put any effort into dating. The rest of it,” She blows out a cloud of smoke, “That all came later.”

That when she _had_ tried to go on dates the men she’d gone out with had took it badly when she’d answered Gabriel’s text and phone calls when she was with them she doesn’t bother mentioning. The blame for that lies on the male gender in general rather than on Gabriel in particular. It had been her _job._

She doesn’t say either about how she’d often stupidly compared how they’d treated her to how Gabriel had treated Emilie and they’d always came up lacking.

“But, in all this time, there must have been someone surely?” He sounds oddly desperate for her to say yes, “You’re an attractive woman, people can’t be that blind.”

“Not much really.” At first she’d still been too ill, and then she seemed to reach an awkward stage in her life where one-night stands are easy to find online, but anything more than that isn’t, and frankly she’s never really been drawn to that type of thing. Too much work for too little pay off. “I had a serious-ish boyfriend for a while. The children,” and she probably shouldn’t call them that now Adrien and Marinette are married, “told him I had to tell him about my past as Mayura before things got any more serious.”

“Did you?”

“No. I didn’t have to. He broke up with me two days later, because he’d fallen for someone else.”

“Did you love him?”

“What?” She snorts. “No. But it’s easier living as a couple than by yourself and it was nice to have someone to snuggle up with in the evenings.”

She’d liked that. That he hadn’t seemed to expected anything more from her than her half of the cooking and her presence in the evenings. Except apparently he had, and she’d just not realised. Apparently she’d just been comfortable for him. There hadn’t been any passion he’d said. Which she’d known. She just hadn’t thought that was a bad thing.

Not after everything she’d been through.

Gabriel’s silent. She wonders if it’s because he doesn’t know how to respond or if it’s because he understands.

“How’s Emilie?” She asks, stubbing out her cigarette on the railing.

“You’d be better asking her that.” He says. At her silent question he adds, “We live separate lives now really. In some ways we have since she came back, but once Adrien moved out she stopped spending much time in Paris at all.”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

He shrugs. “Whatever our flaws maintaining a united front to the press was never one of them.”

She nods, “I remember that.”

“You would.” He agrees, “I called my first assistant after you your name for months you know.”

She doesn’t laugh but she does smile, “You _didn’t_.”

“I did. He didn’t take it very well.”

This time she does laugh, “ _He?_ ”

Gabriel’s lips quirk up at the side, and she could swear she’s right when she thinks that’s fondness in his eyes. 

Somehow before she knows how it’s happened she finds herself wrapped up in his embrace. The rational part of her mind tells her they shouldn’t be doing this at Adrien’s wedding but she lets herself relax against his chest, and lets her head fall against his shoulder anyway.

After all most people are inside. No-one here is paying attention to them.

“God I’ve missed you.” He says squeezing her tighter.

She gives herself another moment of this before she ruins it. “It didn’t really seem like that.”

His grip on her loosens ever so slightly, “I thought you don't want to stay in touch. Adrien said I shouldn't bother you.”

Looking up at him she can't help but say, “What are you taking about?”

Adrien had never mentioned that to her. Not that he’d really talked about his parents to her much at all. She’d assumed it was a sore subject.

Gabriel lets go of her and she takes a step away so she's not standing pressed against him with no excuse.

“How much do you remember of what happened?’ he asks.

“Not much. Not really.” She admits. Their defeat and her months of recovery are a fog of confusion and probable hallucinations. Gabriel had somehow got them away with it but _how_ is beyond her.

He shuts his eyes, “Adrien wasn't happy with what we’d done.”

“I figured that.”

“He wasn’t happy with what I’d done to you.”

“What?” She repeats, feeling like an idiot and wishing she'd drank more before this conversation. “I chose to help you. I _volunteered._ ”

“He still blamed me. And I don't think he was wrong.”

“Gabriel?”

“Father?” Adrien’s voice rings out, “I told you to leave Nathalie alone.”

She’s struck how this must look. With his jacket slung over her shoulders, and the two of them still stood so closely together

“We were just talking.” She tries to justify, “It wasn’t anything. We've just years to catch up on.”

Adrien looks between them and she can see the moment he decides to concede the argument.

“Can I steal you for a dance then?” He says instead.

“I don't dance,” she really doesn’t, neither the stately more formal dances of earlier nor the lively casual ones now. Whatever she can dredge up from her youth when she had been to clubs certainly doesn’t give her any clues for how to dance with her, whatever Adrien is to her. “But thank you.”

“ _Nathalie,”_ Adrien implores her, “Come on. I've already danced with my mother. It's your turn now.”

“Shouldn’t you be dancing with Marinette?”

“Her bridesmaids have stolen her for now.”

She shrugs Gabriel’s jacket off, and passes it back to him. “I suppose that I can make an exception for you.”

She follows Adrien in but freezes when they go in the door and back into the noise. Seeing the dancefloor just confirms to her how little she wants to be on it.

Adrien comes to a stop when he realises she's not following him. It takes him a little longer than it should but she figures that it _is_ his wedding. It’d been untraditional for him not to be a little bit worse for wear.

“You really don't want to do you? That wasn't just false modesty or something.” He said, “God, I'm being like _him._ ”

“Him?”

“Father.”

The comparison didn't make any sense, “I'm fairly certain your father's never asked me to dance.”

He never would have when Emilie was there, and then he hadn’t gone out when she hadn’t been.

Adrien’s face screwed up, “I mean I didn't let you refuse me.”

She frowned, as some things started to put themselves together, “Adrien. I don't know what you think happened but he didn't force me into anything. I _wanted_ to help.”

To preserve her relationship with Adrien she probably _should_ have let him go on thinking her a victim but she didn't feel capable of doing that. They'd lied to him enough, and besides his relationship with his father was more important than his relationship with _her._

“Right, because you had any real option of saying no. He was your boss, and you basically worked alone with him, and he’d pretty much isolated you from anyone else. It was wrong of him. He almost killed you.”

“Did you tell him not to contact me?”

“Can you blame me?”

“I guess not. You've the right to do so if anyone does. It's just. Well I suppose I thought something different was going on. You were worried for _me?”_

He'd implied that she shouldn't try to contact his parents so she's not _that_ surprised to hear he might have done the same to Gabriel but, when she'd thought Adrien was keeping them apart rather than Gabriel just not caring about her, she’d thought it was part of their otherwise non-existent punishment, or because they couldn't be trusted together, or maybe even for the sake of his parents' marriage because he had suspected them before the end. She'd never considered it might be for _her_ sake.

“Of course I was. You almost died.”

“Oh Adrien come here.” She hugs him to her, and is hit by another reminder of how grown-up his is now when she realises he’s ever so slightly taller than her in her heels, “I didn’t. And, you shouldn’t be worrying about me today. It’s _your wedding._ But I’m fine, and I never did anything I wasn’t willing to do.”

* * *

She sits down next to Gabriel on the table he’d found as far from the music as possible and picked up the negroni in front of the seat next to him, “I’m assuming this was for me?”

“I thought you’d need it after the dancing, but you seemed to have dodged that.”

“Thankfully.” She said, “I’m impressed you remembered what I liked to drink.”

“I think maybe I noticed more of you than I realised.”

“Perhaps. I must admit, knowing that you didn’t just forget me once I wasn’t useful anymore does make things look different.”

His grip on his own drink tightens from how his knuckles whiten, “Is that what you thought?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I thought Adrien just wanted me as far from his family as possible.” She took a sip of her drink and relished the burning down her throat, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What did you think was going on? Did Adrien lie to you, or did he just tell you not to contact me?”

“I wouldn’t say he lied exactly. He was very blunt about what he thought I’d done to you. Along with what he thought of everything else I’d done. He might have implied somewhat that you didn't want to see me, but more importantly maybe he made it very clear that I didn’t deserve to and that I shouldn’t. And after what happened I couldn't really disagree with him. I’d already taken so much from you.”

“And you believed him? That I didn't want to see you?”

“I thought maybe you didn't want to discuss what you’d said. I thought maybe you resented me for getting my family back, or that you'd come to your senses and just wanted to avoid the whole thing.”

“What did I say?” She has an inkling, but even now she's not brave enough to say it.

He looks at her oddly. “I thought Adrien and Marinette would have told you. You tried to volunteer to be the cost of bringing Emilie back.”

They _had_ told her that.

He continues “You said you loved me.”

They had _not_ told her that and she wishes she’d not asked now, “They only told me about the former.”

The only blessing in the situation is that Gabriel looks away from her, down at his drink, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you.”

“I shouldn't have told _you_. I've no idea what I was thinking.”

“That you were dying, and that you wanted to die for Emilie instead of nothing I think.”

“Ah.” That might possibly have done it.

“Did you really mean it?”

He must see the incredulity in her eyes.

“I know you cared for me, you put your life on the life for me, but did you love me the way you love Adrien or?”

She has to force her words past the lump in her throat. “Don’t make me say it. Not now.”

Gabriel's eyes shut and she knows he understands what she's not saying.

They open again, “I am sorry Nathalie. I wasn’t lying when I said I don't regret Emilie being alive, but I wish I'd been in a better place back then. That I could have returned your feelings.”

“It's fine. I never expected you to. I knew you couldn't.”

“Only because of Emilie. If saving her hadn't been a possibility then I would have. I almost,”

“Please don't.” She can't have all this raked up. “It’s too late for you to say anything like that now. I don’t know why you brought it up.”

“Sorry.”

“I think I've heard that word from you tonight than ever in a lives before.”

“I've got good at apologies while you've been gone.”

“Apparently,” She can’t stop the bitterness in her voice but, “what _did_ happen? How on earth _did_ we get away with it.”

“Emilie.”

“Ah.”

“Originally Adrien and Marinette were too busy saving her and saving _you_ to spend any time on any ideals of justice, or to deny my help in their esoteric brewing. And then Emilie woke up and, she was always much better at persuading Adrien than _I_ ever was.”

That _almost_ makes sense but, “ _Emilie_ protected _me_? You I can understand but,”

“She’s good with people. She always has been. I think she could tell throwing you under the bus wouldn’t help her case, wouldn’t help _my_ case with Adrien. And she did owe you. She knew that much.”

“That makes more sense to me. No offence, but I couldn’t see you somehow convincing him to spare us. Not after everything. ” Not after how frayed their relationship was even _before_ Adrien had discovered their alter-egos. She looks over Gabriel and wonders how true his earlier claim about regrets and lack of regrets was, and adds, “I am glad you know. That we got her back for Adrien. Even if it wasn’t so much for you in the end.”

“I brought her back to life. My promise to her was fulfilled. That’s not nothing even if I didn’t predict how it would all play out. I love her in a way where I’m satisfied with that now. I learnt that from you.”

She looks at the dancefloor where Emilie is dancing with a man she doesn’t recognise. Not in such a way to be scandalous, but it does make her wonder what Gabriel had meant by separate lives. “It seems unlucky to ask here but how _did_ you and Emilie fall apart?”

Nathalie can’t imagine rejecting someone who had done for her what Gabriel had done for Emilie."

“Thankfully I think cursing this marriage is beyond us. The new Mr and Mrs Dupain-Cheng have gone through a lot to get here. They know each other much better than Emilie & I ever did.”

That’s not an answer to her question but she wonders, “Does it bother you? Him taking her name?”

“Not really. It makes professional sense for her to keep hers, and I can understand them wanting to have the same one, and,” He took a gulp of his own drink, “I can’t be surprised that Adrien didn’t want to keep mine. Not really. I don’t exactly deserve it.”

Before she’s have reached out to comfort him after hearing something like that. Now she doesn’t. “I can understand wanting to escape the weight of a name.” She agrees instead, “I’d have changed mine if I’d married.”

“It never did suit you.” He says, “But apart from anything I seems silly to be precious about my name when I sold the rights to it.”

“I was surprised to hear about that.” Gabriel the man had always been so proud of _Gabriel_ the brand that she’d never imagined he’d sell it to a conglomerate which had promptly shuttered most of it apart from the perfume section. “What do you even do with yourself these days?”

“It didn’t seem to really matter to me anymore. And in answer to your question, not an awful lot really. Though they have kept me on as creative director there’s just a lot less to do now.”

“Marinette said you collaborated with her on the bridesmaids outfits.”

“Yes. I’d have liked to offer to do one of her outfits. For the civil ceremony maybe, if you’ve seen her collections then you’d understand why I can’t pretend I’d be able to out-romanticise Marinette Dupain-Cheng which it came to the church service gown; but I thought offering might have been overstepping. I was gratified when she asked for my help with the bridesmaids. I sometimes wish,” he doesn’t finish the sentence.

“Wish what?”

“That we hadn’t fought her all those years. That she hadn’t seen me at my worst with Adrien. That I’d met her when she did an internship, and then Adrien had bumped into her in the office or at a fashion show one day. She doesn’t need my help to conquer Paris, but I’d have liked to have helped anyway. Talent like that is astonishing.”

“That would be a nice world.” She tries to imagine it and fails. She can’t imagine a Gabriel who wasn’t Hawkmoth, or at this stage a Marinette who wasn’t Ladybug, “You two seem to get on though? Or so I heard. Unless that’s another thing I’d missed.”

“No we do. In some ways she and I get on better than I do with Adrien. I suppose I never let her down in the same way.”

“It’s similar for me really.” She might always care for the boy she helped bring up more than his wife much as she does like Marinette but things are _easier_ with her. She knows where she stands with her at least. She doesn’t hurt herself looking for what she had before the way she does with Adrien.

“You two talk?”

“Sometimes. Originally they’d come check on me together. Now it’s usually Adrien alone but Marinette comes sometimes instead. She even asks me for advice sometimes if you can believe that.”

She realises it sounds stupid to think _she,_ a failure who’d never achieved anything, had anything to offer _Marinette,_ the extraordinarily talented superheroine getting married today who had commissions before she left school, but she had. At first mostly about the Agrestes, but then Nathalie had found herself warning her about who to avoid in the fashion industry and encouraging the girl’s confidence.

Recently it had been about the Agrestes again. Or more to the point about Emilie who would have taken over the wedding if her future daughter-in-law and her mother hadn’t been just as stubborn as she was.

Gabriel shakes his head. “I can believe that quite easily. You were by my side for long enough.”

“Maybe between us we’ve been of some help to her.” She offers, “Although I hear you’ve been quite a patron of the arts when it comes to helping nurture young talent.”

He rolls his eyes, “Out of no fault of my own, but I still have connections and Adrien seemed to think the least I could do was help out as many of the teenagers I’d akumatised with their careers as possible. I suppose I’m lucky he seems to have been in an unusually talented school and I haven’t developed a reputation for picking out duds.”

They fall back into a not uncomfortable silence and Nathalie dares to ask again about Emilie, “You never answered my earlier question.”

Gabriel looks around the empty table as if judging whether anyone can hear them. “Do you think it would look suspicious if we went for another smoke break?”

“Are you presuming you get to share this one too?” He looks surprised, but she’s taken his meaning, that he doesn’t want to talk about it here and she steps stretching it out, “Come on, it’s not like anyone is paying attention to us.”

She finishes the end of her drink in one go and he follows her example.

* * *

“So what happened?”

He fiddles with his cufflinks. “She couldn’t accept what I’d done.”

“But she _knew_ what you were going to do.”

“She knew the plan, but…she overestimated me I think. She thought I’d save her almost immediately. She didn’t know it would go on so long and she didn’t foresee how the ongoing attacks would affect all of Paris, or that most of the people I targeted would be Adrien’s friends. She was very upset about what we’d done to Chloé Bourgeois, and I don’t even want to repeat what she accused me of over Lila Rossi. And she never thought I’d endanger Adrien. She was even unhappy at first that I’d sent him to school even though Adrien told her it was the only good thing I’d done in her absence. ”

“I didn’t know any of that.” She’d had no idea at all. She’d thought it had all been happy families behind the doors of the Agreste mansion. Gabriel had said earlier than he and Emilie maintained a united front for the public but, “Adrien never mentioned any of that. I didn’t think it was easy, he did mention the family therapy,” he tried to convince her to go to therapy of her own but she’d never agreed to do so, “But I’d thought you’d all put yourselves back together.”

“We did. In a way. I think we were all better for it individually. And we _did_ put ourselves together as a family. Its thanks to her that I have any relationship with Adrien at all. She forgave me enough for that. Emilie and I just never put ourselves together as a couple. I think she still loved me, or she wouldn’t have done any of that, but she didn’t _like_ me very much. We don’t shove it in Adrien’s face, but I think by this point he knows that. Perhaps if we could have admitted the full story to someone it would have been different, but as it is I’m just glad I even still have Adrien.”

He’s obviously regretful but he truly doesn’t seem that bothered by it and that hard for her to reconcile with the Gabriel she knew. He really _has_ changed.

She wonders if the change in feelings between him and Emilie goes both ways. If he judges her for judging him, but then, “Why stay together? Officially anyway.”

He shrugs. “Neither of us have a reason not to, and without that seemed silly to give the press that sort of ammunition. And her family doesn’t approve of divorce. Besides neither of us have ever liked to admit we’ve failed.”

Nathalie wonders about Emilie and that man inside again but all she says is, “I remember that too.”

He places his hand over hers, “It’s nice being able to be truthful for once. If Adrien doesn’t forbid it then perhaps we could try being friends?”

“That’d be nice,” she says and she _means_ it, it would be nice to have someone she didn’t have to lie to, and it would be nice to have someone full stop but, “I don’t know if we’ve anything to build a friendship on though.”

“We’ve _years._ And we’ve, you know, everything we did together.”

“Exactly. If we’re not fighting to save her then what are we? _Nothing._ Because I might have worked for you for years, but I was _never_ anything more than your subordinate until everything happened. We’ve no foundation between us for a friendship.” She pulls her hand away from his.

“You can’t pretend there’s _nothing_ between us.” He says, incredulous.

She can only point out the obvious. She might not have gone to therapy but she’s not _stupid_ despite how her choices when he became Hawkmoth might make her look. “It’s not exactly something we can build a healthy platonic relationship on. You and me, if we tried to do something together,” she finds herself still unable to say it despite everything they've admitted.

Thankfully Gabriel seems to take her point, “You’re probably right. It would be nice though.”

“It would be.” She says wistfully. She's like to believe that they could do that. That they could be friends and both have someone who knows all their flaws and sins and doesn’t care. That they could care about each other in a normal way.

That’s a dream though, and she tries to focus on something that could actually happen. “Do you think, now it's been so long and they're starting the next stage in their lives they might be happy to check in on me less often?”

“Quite possibly.” He says, “Why? Does it bother you that much?”

“No. I like seeing Adrien but,” she sighs and wishes she had got another cigarette out, “I've been thinking of about moving out of Paris. Making a clean break of it. I have for a while but, it didn't really seem like a possibility while they wanted to monitor me.”

“Were you thinking of anywhere in particular?”

“Not really. Geneva maybe.” Lots of people who need assistants there. And she's read all the complaints about it being boring but she thinks that would suit her quite nicely. It's not exactly like she’d be picking a city based on its exciting nightlife.

“A whole new country.” He sounds considering. “That really is a break.”

“Geneva’s barely a different country. I might even live in the French side of the border. Everyone says it's cheaper.”

“Nice part of the world though. I've thought of running off to the mountains myself.”

It shouldn’t make sense. He belongs in a city, and yet she finds herself asking only half-jokingly, “What? A cabin all by yourself kilometres from the next town?”

“You know me too well, but, let's just say you're not the only one who's thought of moving out of Paris.”

She can understand that. He’s probably as keen to flee the scenes of their crimes as she is, but unlike her _he_ has responsibilities. “Aren’t you going to be needed for grandparent duty soon enough? That’d be a bit hard to carry out from the vicinity of Mégave or Chamonix or wherever?”

“Chamonix has train connections.”

He knows full well that's not the point, and she lets her judgement of that answer show plainly on her face.

He sighs, and gives in, “I don't think either of them are likely to leave any child of theirs with _me._ ”

Now that makes more sense. “Perhaps not, but even with Emilie there?”

He laughed, “These days I'm not sure Adrien agrees with her parenting either. Marinette's influence I suppose.”

She definitely _should_ have got a cigarette out. It would have given her a way to put off responding to the can of worms he’s just opened. Emilie had been a fantastically involved and loving parent but Nathalie had never quite been able to agree with all her decisions either for all that she was totally unqualified to give any opinion. “I suppose they would want to make their own decisions and Emilie could be a bit,”

“Domineering?”

“I’m glad you said it not me.” He’s close enough that she lets her head fall against his arm, “I wish I’d been more like her sometimes though. That I’d bullied you and Adrien into therapy. Or done _something_ about how you treated him at least.”

“You can’t really blame yourself for that. You did have the disadvantage of working for me.”

“Would you have fired me? If I’d pushed?” She’d wondered that for years.

“I don’t know.” He says, “I’d like to think not, but it’s quite possible I would have.”

She looks up, “You can’t fire me now.”

He looks down and she can tell his gaze is on her lips, “That’s true.”

She looks back down, she’d repressed those feelings for years, until today she’d thought they were done with and buried in resentment. She’s not going to cause a scene by kissing him at _Adrien’s wedding._

“I should have done something anyway.” She said. “Adrien _should_ have been more important than a job. And I told myself I stayed because you needed me, but maybe leaving would have been the best thing I could have done for both of us. Maybe then you’d have reconsidered it all.”

“Maybe you should of. Maybe it shouldn’t have been your responsibility.” He pauses, “Nathalie do you regret working for me?”

“Yes.” In truth the answer is more complicated than that, but despite everything there’s no other answer she can give if she’s truthful about what working for him had done to _her_ life and what she’d done to the Agrestes’ lives. “I wish I’d been late to that interview and you’d been so unimpressed you’d never hired me.”

He’s gone stiff underneath her but doesn’t verbally respond so she continues. “But I suppose that what’s done is done. Useless to think of other worlds where we might have been better people. And anyway, Adrien will still want you around. Even if he never lets you near the kids he’s going to want to run to you with questions about being a father and things.”

“I’m fairly certain he goes to his former bodyguard with those sort of questions.”

“I guess he was probably a better parental figure to Adrien than we were.” She realises what she’s just said and backtracks in panic, “I don’t meant to imply that _I,_ ”

“You should.” He interrupts.

“What?”

“You should imply that. Say that. Because you were. More than I was at least. I’d never regret Adrien, but I should never have had a child probably.”

“Funny, I didn’t do a good job with him either, and sometimes I still get sad that I never did.” It’s not high on her lists of regrets about her life but it’s there nonetheless.

“I’m sure you would have been a good mother. To one of your own. Where you could make the decisions.”

“That’s a nice thought, but I just said it’s stupid to think of other worlds were we could have been better.”

“I’m feeling sentimental I suppose. Blame it on being at a wedding. You can’t deny a mini-you would have been cute.”

“I realise Adrien might have skewed your perception but most children don’t just take after one parent.”

“A mostly mini-you then. I suppose I can allow her or him some differences from their mother. Eyes a little less blue. Greyish maybe.”

She doesn’t look back up into his grey-blue eyes and acknowledge the implication. She doesn’t even know for sure if he knows that he’s made it after just saying he should never have been a parent.

“What does your therapy tell you about dwelling on could-have-beens?” She asks instead.

“They’d probably agree with you.” He admits. His arm slips around her waist, “What about future could-bes?”

“What?”

“Shall we run off to the Alps together? It would make it easier for Adrien and Marinette to keep an eye if they could check on both of us at once. They could bring the grandchildren to visit in the winter. Get them skiing early.”

She stares at him trying to work out what on earth he thinks he’s doing. “Are you _serious?_ ”

“Why not?”

“Why _not?_ Gabriel this is crazy. You haven’t even seen me in years. You don’t know what I’m like now.”

“I think I’ve got a good impression.”

She doubts that and besides, “You and Emilie aren’t actually separated.”

He seems unbothered by the reminder. “Only in the legal sense. And we could be if we wanted.”

Desperately trying to hold onto her own sanity she says, “I’ve had a life outside you for years now.”

“And do you like it?” He pushes.

“What?”

“Your life. Your job. Your apartment. Are you particularly attached to any of it?”

“No. Not really.” She’s bored and lonely and if she wasn’t then she wouldn’t be talking to him, “But that’s not the point.”

“What is then?”

She pulls out of his hold, and hisses, “I’m not going to agree to run away with you at _your son’s wedding_ while we’re both drunk.”

“And if I turned up at your apartment sober and asked you what would you say?”

“I don’t know.” It’s the truth and she should leave if there if she’s being sensible but it’s nice being desired for one night and maybe that’s what makes her say, “You’d have to come and ask me.”

His voice deepens slightly. “Maybe I will.”

She takes another step away from him. “Goodnight Gabriel.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Maybe not quite yet. But I don’t think we should be talk to each other anymore tonight.”

He doesn’t make any move to follow her, and she must look surprised at that because he says, “I’m not going to push at your boundaries. I realise that would be counterproductive.”

“Gabriel Agreste respecting other people’s boundaries? You _have_ changed.”

* * *

She actually leaves pretty soon. Without Gabriel the only people she really knows here are Adrien and Marinette themselves.

There is some small amusement in seeing their friends around and trying to work out which ones she actually knows. She’s fairly sure the blonde making out with a woman she doesn’t recognise on the dance floor is Chloé Bourgeois and she’s some of the others look familiar too, but trying to pick out their schoolfriends loses its amusement when she realises she remembers the name of their akumas better than their real ones.

She means to find Adrien and Marinette to say goodbye but instead she finds Emilie. Who doesn’t recognise her at first at all, until Nathalie makes her excuses and suddenly it must click, as Emilie takes a step back, “Oh my god. _Nathalie?_ ”

“That’s me.”

“I didn’t realise you were going to be here.

“Adrien and Marinette invited me.”

“I suppose they would.” Emilie looks round the room, as if searching for something, “I suppose _that_ explains why I’ve seen so little of Gabriel. I’d put it down to him being him, but it was _you_ wasn’t it.”

“I’m sorry.” She says to the wife of the man who’s asked her to run away from their past with him, “I didn’t mean to cause any problems.”

Emilie raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow, “What problems? I doubt anyone other than me even noticed and _I_ barely did.”

“Still,”

“Really Nathalie. It’s fine.” Emilie’s name is called from behind her and she turns to say she’ll be back in a second, “It really is fine. The bride and groom are over there if you were looking for them.”

* * *

“Are you going?” Adrien asks and he looks vaguely forlorn.

“I think it’s time to abandon this party to you youngsters.” She says.

“I don’t know that I feel _that_ young anymore.” Marinette says.

“Trust me.” She addresses her directly, “You have _years_ ahead of you before you can say that. No matter what anyone in the fashion world says.”

Marinette smiles. “I’ll remember that.”

“Thank you both for inviting me. I know, well, I’m glad I came anyway.”

“So am I.” Adrien says smiling and hugs her goodbye.

Guilt washes over her at his uncomplicated affection.

It doesn’t stop her doing something stupid he wouldn't approve of.

* * *

“I am leaving this time.” She says to Gabriel before he can stand up when she walks over to his table. She leans down to say goodbye with an air kiss and whispers into his ear, “I still have the same address.”

Maybe he’ll come. Maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow and regain his sense and not come. Maybe he has no records of her address now it’s been years since she worked for the company that he doesn’t own anymore.

Maybe _she’ll_ regret doing this in the morning.

Maybe she’ll turn him away if he does turn up.

She’ll see what happens.


End file.
